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Artificial intelligence (AI) is everywhere. Siri, Alexa and Google Home are examples of AI that make our lives easier. Alexa can wake you up, give you the weather, deliver a news brief and update you on all the sports highlights. While your coffee is brewing, she can lay out your daily work schedule. And you can tell Alexa to add your meetings and workouts to your schedule, and to create shopping and errand lists. After an initial investment, Alexa can be your personal assistant without taking up space and costing more money.

These examples show how artificial intelligence enhances a person's life and makes it more efficient. Eighty-four percent of respondents to a study by Pega, “What Consumers Really Think About AI: A Global Study," use AI daily for customized engagement. Google search, spam filters for email, Facebook news recommendations and online shopping recommendations are all examples of AI. How can AI translate into the world of club management and help you to personalize your member engagement efforts?

“...a virtual assistant named Angie, sends about 30,000 emails a month and interprets the responses to determine who is a hot lead. She sets the appointment for the appropriate salesperson and seamlessly hands off the conversation to the human.

"The potential customer gets a prompt and helpful outreach from Angie, and the reps — who may each have 300 accounts — save time because Angie vets the inquiries to identify the ones with the most potential. The reps also become more efficient because Angie routes the right leads to the right reps. In the small pilot CenturyLink ran, Angie could understand 99 percent of the emails she received; the 1 percent that she couldn’t understand were sent to her manager...it [the AI project] has earned $20 in new contracts for every dollar it spent on the system.”

So what if you as a health club operator had an invisible sales agent that was similar to Alexa? With up to 85 percent of your revenues coming from memberships, what if you used artificial intelligence to drive efficiency in the membership process? What if you had an AI tool with the sole job of nurturing prospects into qualified leads ready to take action and then serve them up to your membership sales team just at the right time? How precise would this be? AI requires no W2, earns no wages, takes up no space, is impervious to rejection, can work 24/7 with no breaks and can drive your prospects into leads in the pipeline. The best part is that it can amplify your brand as it engages your member.

The future value of AI is in delivering exceptional experiences. Retention and member engagement are areas that an AI tool like this can enhance at your club. Today’s CMOs are looking at automating customer interactions to deliver personalized rapport. AI can be your brand ambassador for delivering success messages to members. “Sarita, congratulations on working out six consecutive weeks.” Or “Sarita, we miss you! Time to come back!” Boutique studio operators have created intimacy with their members by sending these one-to-one messages and celebrating member milestones. Health club operators can get into the action as well. AI done right in member engagement can amplify your member experience.

Putting AI to work at personalizing your member experience will not happen overnight. AI may not work for money—but it thrives on data. The more member data, the better the predictability of AI. This predictability is what enhances this tool's conversations with your members. So, yes, the benefits of AI will be driven by the strategic vision. Simply put, you have to do the work of building the experience so that AI can deliver this experience to your members.

With AI, health and wellness organizations are going to make some major things happen. Artificial intelligence done right is the next best thing to being there.

BIO

Sarita Myers is a business strategist and a transformation leader that likes to fix things with her head. Finding strategic solutions to solve “big” market problems is her work nirvana. Customer obsessed, Myers believes customer discovery and customer experience mapping are the keys to identifying market problems and developing solutions to fix market needs. A lover of challenge and change, Myers is excited to be leading the product strategy team at Daxko (Spectrum CSI). Her long game is to deliver strategy, positioning and products to the market that will deliver exceptional experiences.

Daxko serves more than 9,000 member-based health and wellness organizations—and their 20 million members—with comprehensive and flexible solutions. From solid back-office technologies that enable efficient operations to engaging mobile applications that build relationships, our solutions are purpose-built for organizations just like yours. The company's people-first culture creates powerful relationships built on service, deep business insight and relevant industry experience. For more information, visit www.daxko.com/spectrum or email [email protected].